Jonathan Kozol is the author of Death at an Early Age (for which he received the National Book Award), Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, and other award-winning books about young children and their public schools. He travels and lectures about educational inequality and racial injustice.

Amazing Grace is Jonathan Kozol’s classic book on life and death in the South Bronx—the poorest urban neighborhood of the United States. He brings us into overcrowded schools, dysfunctional hospitals, and rat-infested homes where families have been ravaged by depression and anxiety, drug-related violence, and the spread of AIDS. But he...

Death at an Early AgeWritten by Jonathan Kozol, Preface by Robert Coles
Plume | Trade Paperback | October 1985
$16.00/17.50(Canada) | 978-0-452-26292-8 (0-452-26292-5)

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

In 1964, Jonathan Kozol entered the Boston Public School system to teach fourth grade at one of its most overcrowded inner-city schools. Here, he unflinchingly exposes the disturbing "destruction of hearts and minds in the Boston public school." Death at an Early Age is the unsparing, heart-wrenching account... Read more

In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his previous prize-winning books, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into...

It is startling and it is shaming: in a country that prides itself on being among the most enlightened in the world, 25 million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a newspaper. An additional... Read more

This is the book for readers of Jonathan Kozol's previous works on education, including The Shame of the Nation and On Being a Teacher; for readers of memoirs like Frank McCourt's Teacher Man; for new teachers looking for guidance and inspiration; and for educators, administrators, and children's advocates of all levels... Read more

Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. In Ordinary Resurrections, he spends four years in the South Bronx with children who have become his friends at a badly underfunded but enlightened public school. A fascinating narrative of daily urban life, Ordinary Resurrections gives a human face to...

The story that jolted the conscience of the nation when it first appeared in The New Yorker

Jonathan Kozol is one of America’s most forceful and eloquent observers of the intersection of race, poverty, and education. His books, from the National Book Award–winning Death at an Early Age to his most recent... Read more

For two years, beginning in 1988, Jonathan Kozol visited schools in neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington D.C., and from New York to San Antonio.He spoke with teachers, principals, superintendents, and, most important, children. What he found was devastating. Not only were schools for rich and poor blatantly... Read more

Since the early 1980s, when the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of black children has reverted to its highest level since 1968. In many inner-city schools, a stick-and-carrot method of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons is now used with students. Meanwhile, as... Read more

National Book Award winner Jonathan Kozol is best known for his fifty years of work among our nation’s poorest and most vulnerable children. Now, in the most personal book of his career, he tells the story of his father’s life and work as a nationally... Read more